“PHINEAS AND FERB: STAR WARS” (9 out of 10) – Produced by Dan Povenmire and Jeff ‘Swampy’ Marsh; Starring the voices of: Vincent Martella, Ashley Tisdale, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Caroline Rhea, Richard O’Brien, Dan Povenmire, Jeff ‘Swampy’ Marsh, Dee Bradley Baker, John Viener, Maulik Pancholy, Bobby Gaylor, Alyson Stoner, Ariel Winter, Olivia Olson, Christopher Corey Smith, April Winchell, Ross Marquand, Eddie Pittman, Tyler Alexander Mann, Stephen Stanton, Simon Pegg, Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman; Rated TV-G. Premiere July 26, 2014 in Disney Channel: 51 minutes.
Some would decry this as a cynical cashgrab by Disney, but they would be wrong. With beautiful animation, action sequences, humor, and a lot of heart, Phineas and Ferb delivers an episode that will entertain fans of both franchises, even if they’re only passingly familiar with one or the other. Fans of both are in for a special treat.
Not only is it a great episode of Phineas and Ferb, it manages to pull the best out of Star Wars and deliver in a way most parodies or crossovers fail to. But, as the opening title crawl for “EPISODE IVa: May the Ferb Be With You” reveals, none of this is really canon, so, haters, fanboys, nerfherders, I ask you to please calm down.
A couple of summers ago, in a galaxy far, far away. . .
Phineas and Ferb live with their parents one moisture farm over from Luke Skywalker, but unlike Luke, they love Tatooine. With twin suns, speeders to fly, and plenty of junk to build things from, they see home as one endless summer. They even sing a song about it, including racing down Beggars Canyon and eating blue ice cream. And with a few power converters they picked up from Tosche Station, they even put podracing engines on their speeder.
But when their former pet platypus, Perry the Rebelpus, steals the plans to the Death Star and delivers them to Princess Leia, they find themselves tangentially involved in the story we all know and love.
All the other Phineas and Ferb regulars show up. It seems “Darthenschmirtz” invented the Death Star (explaining its simple self destruct mechanism of a small thermal exhaust port). His new plan involves creating a “Sith-inator,” freezing Perry in carbonite, and enhancing his evilness with said Sithinator so he can be as bad as Vader. Doesn’t make any sense? Don’t worry– he’ll explain it all in a lavishly choreographed musical number.
Meanwhile, Candace is a stormtrooper obsessed with busting the rebels, aided by Buford and Baljeet, but their main mission is to get Darth Vader some new socks. Isabella shows up as a star pilot — a fierce rival of Han Solo. When she has to help Phineas and Ferb track down the Millenium Falcon so they can deliver something important to Luke and the droids, she is anything but excited. But the plot is really ancillary to most of what goes on here.
The best parts are the jokes. It’s rare I laugh out loud at television or movies any more. There were at least five different times here that jokes really hit, though you may need to be in on them as a fan of Star Wars or Phineas and Ferb to really get them. It’s obvious that the Phineas and Ferb team are big fans of the series, even throwing in some prequels jokes and references for good measure. My favorite punchlines? “Hey, I was just getting into that conversation!” “Oh wait– that’s Cloud City I’m thinking of!” Also, Darthenschmirtz’s timeshare.
And yes, as I mentioned, there are musical numbers. Most of them are great, just as we’d expect from them. Vanessa even shows up as a Twi’lek lounge singer. Unfortunately she and Candance do not reunite for a version of “Busted,” nor do any of the songs here rank in the top best Phineas and Ferb songs, but that’s completely ok. That might be my only complaint with the entire episode is that none of the songs really hit, especially compared with the music from the last Phineas and Ferb movie, “Across the 2nd Dimension.”
And don’t blink or you’ll miss it, but there are celebrity voice cameos! Simon Pegg plays both C-3PO and Candace’s commanding officer, who is one of the best characters in the show. When he finally delivers the “socks” to Vader. . . classic. Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman (who it’s worth noting did special effects on the Star Wars movies and had their own Star Wars crossover episode earlier this year) also play a pair of stormtroopers in the Imperial Administration Offices Star Destroyer.
I should also point out that regular Perry the Platypus voice actor Dee Bradley Baker (a major contributor to Star Wars: The Clone Wars as well as in the Family Guy Return of the Jedi parody) also pitched in a few growls for Chewbacca in this episode. As far as I’m concerned, the more Dee Bradley Baker, the better.
So for those naysayers who bemoaned the takeover of Star Wars by Disney, I kindly invite you to suck it. If this new corporate collusion is going to bring us content of this quality, my only wish is that Disney would exploit it more. I liked the Marvel crossover episode last summer, but it failed to really impress me. Which should say something about my unabashed love for this episode, as I am equally a fan of Marvel and Star Wars (if not even a bigger Marvel fan recently).
Given how great this was (and a couple of mentions late in the episode) I’m hoping we’ll get an Empire Strikes Back follow-up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Disney is planning on making that many more new episodes after this season ends, so that might be wishful thinking. But may the Force be with them in guiding their decisions. As long as that decision is for more Phineas and Ferb.
Now where can I buy my Perry the Rebelpus, Phineas dressed as Luke, and Ferb as Darth Maul plush toys?
9 out of 10
PS- For a writeup of all the reasons we love Phineas and Ferb, check out Neverbot’s Saturday Morning Cartoons column from a few months back on it.